This op-ed by noted civil rights leader, historian, and People For the American Way Board Member Mary Frances Berry was published in Newsone on April 24, 2021.
Moments after Derek Chauvin was convicted on all counts in the murder of George Floyd, a collective exhale of relief went out across the nation. “We can breathe again,” Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said, a poignant echo of Floyd’s final pleas for air as he lay dying on a Minneapolis street.